B R I 



5.54 



B R I 



Brindley. ry t'ne canal over the river Irwell, near Barton Bridge, 

 to Manchester, and to lead off a branch to Longford 

 Bridge, in Stratford. This was to be accomplished 

 without the aid of locks, by preserving the same le- 

 vel through the whole course of the canal. After 

 many difficulties had been surmounted, of sufficient 

 magnitude to have deterred an ordinary man from 

 the undertaking, the great labour remained, which 

 was, to carry the canal over the river at the height 

 of thirty-nine feet above the surface of the water. 

 Though Brindley was confident of the practicability 

 of the design, he wished his Grace to take the opi- 

 nion of some able engineer before the attempt was 

 made. A gentleman was accordingly consulted, to 

 whom the scheme appeared to demand ridicule rather 

 than deliberation. He is stated to have said, " that 

 he had often heard of castles in the air, but was 

 never before shewn where any of them might be 

 erected." Neither Brindley's confidence, nor the 

 Duke's acquiescence in his judgment, was shaken by 

 this declaration. The work was begun in Septem- 

 ber 1760, and in the July of the year following a 

 boat floated along the aqueduct. The design ex- 

 tended with the progress of the work ; and another 

 branch was opened from the canal, which was to be 

 carried over the rivers Mersey and Bollan, besides 

 many deep vallies, in its extension to the tideway in 

 Mersey. Here the obstruction of locks was also 

 avoided. High mounds of earth were raised across 

 the vallies, the ridges of which became the bed of 

 the canal. In order to reduce the labour and cost 

 of the work, Brindley suggested the simple method 

 of bringing boats filled with earth along the channel, 

 as far as it was wrought ; at which point a caisson, or 

 cistern made of timber, received the boat, and the 

 bottom being opened, its load of earth descended, 

 and gradually displaced the water. In consequence 

 of the successful issue of this undertaking, the re- 

 mainder of Mr Brindley's very useful life was chiefly 

 employed in making surveys, laying out canals, and 

 sometimes superintending the execution of his plans. 

 Of this number, the most remarkable is the Grand 

 Trunk Navigation, as he called it, which is carried 

 through a space of ninety-three miles, from the 

 Trent to the Mersey. This design was completed 

 in eleven years, five years after the decease of the 

 projector. It was furnished with seventy-six locks, 

 and conducted through not less than five tunnels, one 

 of which pierces through Air Castle-hill, and is 2880 

 yards in length, and more than seventy yards below 

 the surface of the earth. The counties of Durham, 

 Westmoreland, Lancaster, York, Chester, Stafford, 

 Worcester, Warwick, Somerset, Sarum, Devon, 

 Hants, and Oxford, have all derived local improve- 

 ment and advantages, either from his surveys, plans, 

 or superintendence of inland navigations. It is pro- 

 bable, that a man more unlettered than Brindley ne- 

 ver obtained distinction in any pursuit connected with 

 science. If it is not true, as has been said, that he 

 could neither read nor write, yet it is certain that his 

 writing was confined to a few occasional letters to 

 his friends, and his reading appears to have been al- 

 most as circumscribed as his writing. 



So little did the operations of his mind depend 

 upon the use of visible signs, that the combinations 

 of his machinery were often formed without their 

 aid ; and, when his employers have expressed no wish 



to sec his plans delineated, they have even been car- 

 ried into execution without having ever been express- 

 ed in figures. To aid the abstraction of his mind, 

 when engaged in complex arrangements, he was ac- 

 customed to retire to his bed, and remain there till 

 the design was mentally completed, sometimes as 

 long as two or three days. His memory, which was 

 never taught to distrust itself, and commit its pos- 

 sessions to paper, was in no danger of suffering any 

 link in his mechanical arrangement to escape. Of 

 this he was so confident from experience, that he of- 

 ten declared, if he had time enough to complete his 

 combinations, he was perfectly secure of retaining 

 every part of the design, however complex. 



Mr Brindley was endowed by nature with great 

 powers of mind, but they never possessed that flexi- 

 bility of application which might have been produ- 

 ced by the various exercises of a liberal education. 

 He thought vigorously and justly in his own parti- 

 cular sphere ; but when placed in circumstar.ces in 

 which it was natural he should apply his reason to 

 subjects of which he had no knowledge, he expressed 

 all that uneasiness which must arise in a mind fond of 

 order in the midst of inextricable confusion. Hence 

 it is related of him, that, after having once seen a 

 play in London, he declared, that the spectacle pro- 

 duced such distraction of thought, as to unfit him 

 for some time for his customary pursuits, and he 

 never would repeat the experiment. During several 

 of the last years of his life, Mr Brindley w;is afflicted 

 with a hectic fever almost without intermission. He 

 did not survive his fifty-sixth year. He died Sep- 

 tember 27. 1772, and was buried at New Chapel in 

 Staffordshire. See Biograpk. Britan. (j. M.) 



BRINE SPRINGS. See SALT. 



BRISAC, BRISACH, or BREYSACH, a city of Ger- 

 many, and capital of Brisgaw in Alsace, was former, 

 ly one of the strongest towns in Europe, and, from, 

 its strength, has been denominated the Citadel of Al- 

 sace, the Head of Germany, the Pillow nf Austria. 

 In 1331, it was mortgaged by the Emperor Louis 

 of Bavaria, to Otto Duke of Austria, and the trans- 

 fer was ratified by Charles V. in 1348. Gustavu* 

 Home, a Swedish general, after having acquired 

 great advantages over the imperial army, made an at- 

 tempt upon Brisac in 1633, but was thwarted in his 

 designs by the activity of the Duke of Ferrara. In. 

 1638, it was besieged by Bernard of Saxony, Duke 

 of Weimar, and compelled to surrender, after having 

 been reduced by famine to such extremities, that the 

 governor found it necessary to place guards upon 

 the burying grounds, to prevent the inhabitants from 

 digging up and devouring the dead. It was soon 

 after occupied by the Marshal of Guebriant in the 

 name of Louis XIII. of France, to whom it was 

 formerly ceded, both at the peace of Westphalia in 

 1648, and at the peace of the Pyrenees in 1659 ; but 

 it was restored to the Emperor of Germany in 1700, 

 after a stone bridge, built over the Rhine in its vici- 

 nity, had been destroyed. It was taken again by the 

 French in 1704, with an army of 40,000 men under 

 the Duke of Burgundy, after the trenches had been 

 opened against it only three days ; but, upon suspi- 

 cion of treachery, its governor, Count D'Arce, was 

 beheaded ; the second in command, Count Marsigli, 

 sentenced to have his sword broken over his head by 

 the hands of the common hangman ; and all who 



